As gamers we love loot. Love it. We see something drop from an enemy encounter, and we rush up to it, eager to get our grubby, battle-scarred hands on it. It doesn’t matter if we play alone, with friends, frenemies or clans, we just can’t get enough of the good stuff after battling.

Have you ever thought about why we’re so loot obsessed? If you take a step back and think about it, what we’re getting excited about is a collection of pixels on a screen, and often the actual content of the loot is close to worthless in terms of the game itself. So why do we get so excited when we see it?

The typical set up in a loot-heavy game is a generous reward system – you get loot for nearly every encounter (so it’s a plentiful resource), but you only get the good stuff every so often. Rare loot is a precious, wonderful find, and the schedule by which you’ll get it is set in such a way that you’ll always think it’s possible – so you’ll continue to keep fighting, keep going, and keep trying for the good stuff. It’s rare, but not so rare that you feel hopeless and give up.

If this sounds a bit like the way casinos run, you’re correct. Payout schedules on slot machines are adjusted to the same principle – the house wants you to keep playing, so they’ll throw you a bone every so often. And sometimes – just sometimes, that bone has some serious meat on it.

What’s going on here is operant conditioning, by way of positive reinforcement. Good old BF Skinner coined the term (and noted its forms) back in the 50s when he was doing behavioral experiments on rodents, which, like it or not, applies scarily well to the human world.

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A quick glance at the recent release schedules demonstrates the power of the HD Collection. The likes of Devil May Cry, God of War, Metal Gear Solid, and Silent Hill have all seen their earlier classics revitalized through the inclusion of high-definition resolutions, trophies and achievements, and in some cases, bonus material.

HD Collections are relatively simple to make, while also near guaranteed to be somewhat successful. Fans who played them before want to relive their memories with the addition of achievements/trophies while newcomers get to revel in gaming history on a current generation console. It's a win-win scenario.

We've seen some great games given the HD treatment, but how about the titles that have been overlooked? We take a look at the five HD Collections that we want to see released soon and just what why they would be so popular.

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It’s been a little over a week since the new Portal 2 DLC, the Perpetual Testing Initiative, was released. In that time we’ve been scouring the Steam Workshop, looking for Aladdi...errr, the diamonds in the rough, so that you don’t have to. Here’s what we found.

Easy Difficulty

Name: Vertigo

Designer: Urser

This test chamber is both mild and well designed, a rarity at the moment on the Steam Workshop. You’ll fall deep into a well in search of a companion cube, and then ascend through a series of simple chambers to return it to the surface. Anyone who completed Portal 2 should have no problem here, but on occasion, it’s a nice feeling to solve a puzzle without excessive mental exertion.

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Hello, test subject. This is Cave Johnson from Earth 92543395...well, there are infinite universes, so the chance of my Earth’s numerical designation having any finite number of digits is mathematically zero. Let’s just move on.

In your reality, I’m probably the head of the best damn applied sciences company on Earth. In this one, I’m a writer for G4. Just as good. As a tribute to my other, uh, alterna-Caves, I’m gonna teach you, test subject, how to design your own test chambers. That might be a conflict of interest. Don’t care.

Head over to the new Community Test Chambers option, then to “Create Your Own Test”. The map editor loads up a small room with three required components: an entrance, an exit, and a large observation room. You can move these around, though their placement somewhere in the chamber is required.

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With the much anticipated release of Diablo III, it's the ideal time to catch up on the storyline that's led us to this grand finale of the memorable trilogy. For many, it'll be their first experience of the series given the time that's lapsed between installments and, while gameplay will be intuitive, it's going to be useful to understand the background behind such games without having to play through the previous two games and expansions packs.

The timeline behind the trilogy is a convoluted tale full of intrigue and lore that could cover hundreds of pages of information. Indeed it has, thanks to the many novelizations of the series. While we can't quite go into that level of depth here, we can provide a perfect introduction to the main storyline to ensure that new and lapsed players can catch up with exactly what's going on.

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Urban legends are prevalent throughout all mediums of popular culture, with dozens dating back to mysterious happenings on movie sets and subliminal messaging worked into popular musical hits, but the gaming industry has somehow managed to debunk or confirm most of these legends rather quickly.

This doesn’t leave much to be shared in terms of legends or tales, but rest assured, there’s a small number of urban legends surrounding videogames that still have players questioning their validity.

The Polybius Initiative

In 1981, a small number of mysterious cabinets started making their way into arcades throughout Portland, Oregon. There wasn’t much that was known about these machines, but they gained popularity at an alarming rate before causing extreme problems and disappearing completely.

The internet wasn’t around much in 1981, which meant that most of the information on arcade cabinets came from newsletters or straight from the cabinet distributor themselves. When Polybius started making its way around the Portland suburbs, there wasn’t too much information on it. It has been said that the gameplay was of a tempest-style but could have possibly had mazes and other puzzles built-in, there’s really no way to confirm either way.

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Why is it so hard to find good superhero games? Why is it that for every bright spot like 2003’s Hulk or the more recent Batman outings, we get about seven mediocre movie tie-ins and a few truly abysmal titles, like the infamous Superman 64 and that atrocious Catwoman game.

Superheroes seem like the perfect subject matter for videogames. Think about it – the entire genre focuses on larger than life characters with special powers, suited to sci-fi or other “genre” fiction, the bread and butter of about 80% of AAA titles. Why, that sounds like a game designer’s dream. Not to mention the fact that there’s a huge crossover audience between folks who like to watch superhero flicks and read comics and people who like to get their game on (read: the ever-so-fickle male 18-35 demographic).

We’ve done a bit of sleuthing to find the biggest constants in strained superhero game-making relations – as well as ways developers can overpower them.

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We have our share of problems in this field, that’s for sure. But sometimes, it’s good to take a look around, check out all the progress that developers and fans are making, and admit to ourselves that there’s no better time to be a gamer. Following up on our discussion of negative trends in the industry, here’s a look on the sunny flip side, with the trends that are currently making us oh-so-happy to be around games all day.

Unprecedented variety

It may be a stretch to call it an embarrassment of riches, per se, but there have never been so many choices for gamers. Indies are flourishing – and the best are rising to the top, gaining series mainstream attention (see: Fez, AntiChamber, Sword and Sworcery and many more). AAA games, which have begun rivaling mainstream action movies in terms of cinematic wizardry and polish (just take a look at Uncharted 3 and Mass Effect 3), have never looked or played better.

Game engines (and other game making tools) have started to become accessible enough for non-technical artists and designers to start sharing their ideas with the world, allowing for “personal” games that folks like Anna Anthropy have started to make popular. Experimental games and out-there gameplay ideas are starting to make their way into the public consciousness, thanks to exhibitions like IndieCade. Finally, “folk” games are starting to emerge from the abyss, with titles like Johann Sebastian Joust leading the way.

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Who doesn’t like a good videogame Easter egg? There’s nothing like playing a game and discovering some incredible secret you had no idea about, like the sinister messages scrawled on the walls of Portal’s Aperture Laboratories, or John Romero’s bloodied head on a stick in good old Doom II.

Then there are the secrets that most of us don’t discover, the ones so insanely tricky to find that only a handful of people ever find them on their own. Some secrets were buried so deep into their games they became the stuff of legend, the magical old wives’ tales of gaming – before the Internet came along and made nothing a secret, right? Which I guess makes this article detailing the labors behind seven particularly insane videogame secrets no more than a big fat part of the problem.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Nintendo Power once ran a contest offering the kind of immortality a Zelda fan could only dream about: his or her very own room in A Link to the Past. Unfortunately for winner Chris Houlihan, his special room was so obscurely hidden that for years most players had no idea of its existence.

The Method: This is only possible with the haste-bestowing Pegasus boots equipped. You have to sprint through a specific sequence of around ten screens until you reach the well hidden under the bush just inside the castle walls. Not only is the route so specific, but also you can’t take any damage along the way, you have to cut through the bush from the south side, and you need to do it all in a matter of seconds. There are other confirmed methods, but they’re all just as oddball and obscure.

The Reward: You fall into a room with 45 blue rupees scattered around it and a plaque which reads “My name is Chris Houlihan. This is my top secret room. Keep it between us, OK?” And that’s just about it, I’m afraid. Still, fanfare or no, it’s a cool secret - especially if your name is Chris Houlihan.

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With Earth Week taking place, we thought that it would be a good idea to bring gamers back to their roots with Dungeons and Dragons. Pen and paper D&D is one of the most green forms of gaming. Every game ends with only a little paper to recycle and some great memories to share.

There’s a fair number of gamers who aren’t familiar with how to play D&D or even where to get started so we put together a little guide to help you along your way to taking over as your group’s Dungeon Master.

If you’re unfamiliar with Dungeons and Dragons, Gary Gyax and Dave Ameson created the pen and paper RPG in 1974. The goal is for players to create an adventure using solely their imagination. Players construct characters that they take on an adventure to accomplish a goal set out for them by the Dungeon Master (often referred to as the DM). This DM controls the scenario and circumstances that players might encounter along their journey.

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Microsoft is ramping up available GamerScore points for Xbox Live Arcade titles from 200 to 400, and to celebrate its launch of the Arcade NEXT promotional jamboree. Starting today, four special titles will be released each week to commemorate a change that will have Achievement hunters cracking their knuckles in glee.

But they shouldn’t be the only ones excited. For a few years now we’ve been kicking up a fuss about the Summer of Arcade, the time of year Microsoft seems to choose to spotlight the very best XBLA games – but this time it looks like it’s coming early. The four games in the Arcade NEXT promotion are all looking full of potential, with one or two of them arguably likely contenders for end-of-year accolades. We preview the four games that Microsoft are collectively calling Arcade NEXT, but maybe it’s best to think of them as 2012’s Spring of Arcade.

Trials Evolution

What is it? The long-awaited follow-up to Trials HD, the 2009 XBLA game that combined Excitebike-like 2D motocross with obstacle-swamped tracks to make for a brilliant physics-based puzzler/racer.

Why should I be excited? Ask those who’ve played it and they’ll tell you Trials HD is some of the most fun you can have with an Xbox controller. The game has such simple controls: one button to accelerate, one to brake, and gentle taps of the left stick to make your rider lean forward or back. The genius is how precise it all is; the slightest bit of movement can totally wreck your trajectory. This becomes crucial as the game slowly but surely ramps up the challenge and complexity of the tracks, throwing in all manner of huge jumps, explosive landings, fragile platforms, and watery graves between you and that all-important checkpoint. Yet the challenge isn’t just to complete tracks but to do so quicker than your Xbox Live friends. All of this comes together to make a very challenging puzzler/race and yet for all the punishment the one-more-go factor is astronomical.

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While The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings finally makes it debut on the Xbox 360, beginners and returning fans of the series will want to check out all the tricks, tips, and tactics you need to know before buying this epic action RPG.

Featuring mature storylines and characters, challenging multi-faceted combat and a narrative that doesn’t lead the player by the nose, the Witcher 2 continues the story of Geralt of Rivia, a titular Witcher, or monster hunter.

Before you step into Geralt’s boots though, read through G4’s Beginner’s Guide to The Witcher 2 and learn some background on Geralt, what happened in the previous game, and how to best prepare for combat. After all, a good monster hunter is a prepared monster hunter.

Onward, to Temeria...

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Like any other entertainment industry, our hobby of choice has been plagued with some nasty trends lately. Chalk it up to growing pains, lack of diversity, or just plain bad decision-making, we can all trace a few crappy lines through the industry.

But this is no bloated rant or screed about how everything would be fixed if everyone would just go indie, man. We’ve got solutions – or at least, the beginnings of solutions – to each and every negative. Think of this as an exercise in creative problem solving.

It’s in our best interest to propose solutions. After all, we want to play awesome games – and killing lame trends helps us all in the long run.

The costs are out of control!

The problem: development costs are spiraling wildly out of control, causing studio closures, price hikes, and a variety of sub-problems, such as a lack of diversity in game content. AAA publishers are getting more and more conservative about the games they’ll greenlight – only “sure bets” will get funded, while lots of deserving IP and ideas get left in the cold.

On a related note, those costs get passed down to consumers, and we’re now seeing game content that “should” be included in a purchase carrying hefty DLC fees.

The solution: Run a tight ship, get creative, and embrace digital distribution.

AAA publishers don’t need to be the “gatekeepers” of gaming anymore, as the thriving indie community can tell you. One only needs to take a look at Steam and the mobile market to get a sense of what is possible when the barriers to entry are lowered.

Some games deserve the AAA attention and money, but that shouldn’t mean breaking the bank to get pretty graphics. Sound business practices, like making use of playtesting (not market testing but actual, iterative design) early in the process, incentivizing talent to stick with your company, and a dedication to good planning would go a long way in keeping costs down in the long run.

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Rest assured, Robot Entertainment’s sequel to their smash-hit tower defense game Orcs Must Die! packs all the strategical mayhem and deliciously destruction as its predecessor. I got my mitts on the game at PAX East and found that everything really is better with a buddy; fan demand for a co-op mode has been answered with flawless execution, adding another layer of strategical shenanigans to the familiar third-person action base.

Joining the warrior mage on his quest to destroy all Orcs is the new sorceress class, a character previously involved but not playable. The action of Orcs Must Die! 2 begins immediately on the heels of the first game’s story, but as of yet the folks at Robot are being secretive about our old enemy’s involvement and why she is fighting alongside her ex-nemesis. Players who dive into co-op mode must lead this pair in cooperation as ugly brutes pour from the rifts.

New traps, tricks, spells, and an upgrade system give players more choice as they litter the battlefield with traps and rifle through their arsenal of magic and weapons. The sorceress can summon the skeletons of dead Orcs to fight for her, as well as snipe her foes with deadly energy by flicking her wand in their direction. New traps freeze Orcs in place, push them off bridges and spear them unexpectedly on iron spikes. It’s like being a hamster ball filled with bone-crunching whoop-worthy death. It’s deeply satisfying in that primal childlike urge-to-laugh-at-cartoon-creatures-biting-dust way.

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PAX East’s Indie Showcase was a smoking hotspot of activity this weekend. Here’s what you may have overlooked, and why you should be singing a different tune.

Lawnmower Challenge
Lunar Enigma's lock-and-key path-finding puzzle may look deceptively simple on first glance, but a quick run through a handful of levels professes otherwise. Inspired by late 80s tile-based Chip's Challenge, Lawnmower Challenge asks players to mow a plot of grass in the least number of moves. The plots, divided into squares and broken into sections with wooden fences, are studded with mower-impassable perils such as rocks and mud. While players can walk over the muddier areas, seeds must be collected and used to cross them with the mower. Keys scattered in the grass grant access to locked areas, and all item collection moves without the mower still go towards your step count.

What makes this iOS and Android title irresistible is its fresh and clean approach to one of the more classic game puzzles. That and the relaxing, smooth jazz soundtrack is just the clear and heady mix needed to push the noodles of your brain through the more grueling 500-move levels. The game is expected to release later this year.

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